Get ready for gravity waves all day, every day

In a scattered concert spot, which is our universe, black holes are often encountered to create cosmic disasters called gravitational waves. These clashes, along with other astronomical activity, generating these disturbances of space-time, occur quite often so that the wave would have to break through some part of the universe at any given moment. But because the waves are quiet to noise when they reach Earth, astrophysicists only succeeded in hearing their first in 2015.

After the researchers have figured out how to listen, though, they made progress quickly. By the end of last year, their lengths at the length of L-shaped detectors located in Washington, Louisiana and Italy took only 1

1 gravitational waves. Ten years ago they hoped to find out one gravitational wave per day. "We are moving to the goal we originally had 30 years ago," says physicist Fred Raab of Caltech, a member of the Laser Observatory of Gravitational Waves of the Laser Interferometer (LIGO). I just want to open one. We wanted to make measurements of these things a routine tool. "

Their plans began to crystallize: last week, researchers affiliated with LIGO announced that they had received a key part of funding to upgrade their tools. The National Science Foundation and its British counterpart, British research and innovation companies, together promised them $ 35 million. These new funds, along with several international efforts to build new detectors, mean that scientists should be on the way to drowning data in the next decade. ever before. This is because the signals provide information about the Universe that is unavailable through telescopes. In fact, physicists often compare gravitational waves with sound: if telescopes are eyes on the universe, then the gravitational wave detectors are ears. With more sensitive information about black holes, neutron stars and supernovas, researchers have a new flow of data, for example, one can study the expansion of the universe and the nature of dark matter.

their detectors in Washington and Louisiana in a new iteration, called Advanced LIGO Plus. LIGO senses gravitational waves, combining several infrared laser beams along the L-shaped arms of their detectors. Changes in the laser beam change if the gravitational wave pulses through the arms to deform their length. But to make them even more accurate, the LIGO team plans to control the quantum properties of laser radiation waves in a process known as "light compression".

A further strategy for collecting more signals is to create more observatories. Detectors in different locations that record the same signal help researchers confirm that it comes from a gravitational wave. In addition, more detectors provide more coverage of the universe. Depending on how its builders orient their L-shaped hands, the detector becomes sensitive to gravitational waves coming from a particular direction. Several detectors also allow researchers to receive more data from the data. For example, several signals from one and the same gravitational wave can accurately determine where it originated, just as GPS uses several satellites to find your position, says Joe van den Brand of VU Amsterdam, who manages the gravity wave observatory in Italy as Virgo.

There are currently three detectors in the world: two detectors LIGO and Virgo. But in the very near future another astrophysicists are going to test a new observatory of gravity waves called KAGRA, located in a cave 200 miles west of Tokyo. They open up a new technology – the mirrors cool about 20 degrees above absolute zero, which researchers of the gravitational wave can consider crucial for all future detectors. They plan to begin surveillance in the fall of 2019, says Takaaki Kayit, Ph.D., from Tokyo University, who manages the collaboration. The team began planning this site back in 2010, says Raab, and built most of the Indian detector at the same time as Louisiana and Washington, expecting the future of the third issue abroad. Now it seems the time has come for the detector: Raab is currently reporting how to send "several buildings" to several hundred thousand lasers, photodiodes, mirrors and free components from Washington to India. When it is built, it should be almost identical to the LIGO Observatory in the United States.

These international teams will collaborate to squeeze most of the sciences from their signals. LIGO and Virgo members regularly meet and even have their own data analysis groups, and as soon as the Japanese detector shows sufficient sensitivity, they are planning to join.

Collectively, they are working on a quick protocol to prevent the community. to interesting signals, says Raab. They hope to reach the point where the gravitational wave passing through the Earth is raised by one detector, then by the next, and then by the third, all milliseconds. They submit these signals to the automated system to indicate false alarms. Once the signal passes through the test, within a minute the automated system will warn observatories around the world to look for the visual origin of the gravitational wave. They turn their telescopes to watch – and try to catch the universe in action.